Friday, June 30, 2006
12:09 PM
The MOE building has very fascinating lifts for a technological ignoramus like me: You press the floor number you want to go to at the lift lobby. When a lift door opens, an LCD panel just inside the lift door will indicate which floors it will stop at. And so to reach the floor you want to go to, you have to enter a lift that says it will go to that particular floor. From what I recall, there're no buttons in the lift, so I gather that if you forget to alight at your destination, you could very well be stuck in the lift until someone outside rescues you.
I made it there and back without any mishaps in the lift on Wednesday to attend the MOE meet-up session for us MOE Teaching Scholars. It was basically a get-to-know-you session, complete with *gasp* ice breaker games for the recipients of the scholarship as well as a briefing for some administrative matters. Many relevant personnel also had a turn at speaking; the OBS instructor and her briefing, a senior and her experience sharing, two NUS professors and their promoting of some of their programmes.
Having been briskly acquainted with the lot of Teaching Scholars, I couldn't help detecting this general aura of idealistic enthusiasm in the air, exuding from both the scholars and the speakers. I could see a subtle tingle of invincibility in some of the scholars' eyes. And words like 'Global' and 'Achievements', or 'Meaningful' and 'Enriching' kept popping up on the powerpoint screens or on the lips of the speakers. It seemed to me that by the end of the session at MOE, some of the scholars would have been sufficiently psyched into believing that they can come inspire a new generation of students, change the education system, and bring about World Peace.
"Crap lah, the MOE is just like SAF like that, got anything to say also must go through the proper channels and chain of command. You can't do very much. Want to change the screwed up education system? Forget it man." the few of us ORD'd blokes who later sat down at a nearby coffeeshop for lunch were, of course, too jaded and cynical to have been influenced by all that idealism, "eh Zichun, you okay not? You look a little sick."
I couldn't help feeling very sick after being immersed in that aura of unrealistic grandeur for a whole morning.
...
Actually, I had choked on a mint-flavoured menthos earlier, and I discovered there and then that having menthol in your windpipe was no joking matter. My whole face went red, I really couldn't breathe and speak. I had such terrible spasmic coughs that I thought I might have ruptured some blood vessels in my throat.
In reality, I believe most people can't manage to do very much in their lives. Every now and then, we hear of idealistic high-flying civil servants (or civil servants-to-be) that publicly (or privately) tell of their dreams of wanting to change the screwed-up system for the betterment of society. These people are usually top scholars (PSC, President's and beyond), and they usually end up having to later clarify that the system's not all that bad after all, or, if they didn't make their unrealistc claims too public, confess that, it turns out, there's nothing very much they could actually do.
How much less us second-tier scholars?
...
My answer to that is God.
No, I'm not trying to suggest that "with God as my divine weapon, I can hope to do all things great and glorious, and maybe, via a miracle, change the system according to what I think is right." Rather, the idea I'm trying to put forth is more along the lines of "now that I've realised how insignificant my own abilities are, I can suspend all faith and endeavour in my own human abilities, and instead, believe in and endeavour upon God and His plans."
Surely God has already made plans for the system if even us second-tier scholars can see the wide array of problems that plague it. However, I think firstly we have to accept that realistically speaking, there's probably nothing very much we as individuals can do to make any effective AND lasting changes. We may perhaps start something notable, or propagate something that's already been started. However, without Someone to plan and orchestrate everything, and equally importantly, many cooperative people who choose to follow, carry out and maintain this one single plan through the generations, we'd only very likely end up with many different imperfect plans carried out half-way, and nothing very much done.
In a world where everyone has good intentions, but are often hindered by pragmatic problems that often result in disillusionment and cynicism, God is the answer. And striving to be the willing and obedient servant and worker of God's plans, hardworking and humble; that is the best hope we can realistically harbour for the effective and lasting improvement of anything really.
Meanwhile, let me continue to hope that I will not get into any trouble with the intimidating lifts when I go back to MOE tomorrow to sign the contract.
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"God is dead" - Friedrich Nietzsche. Do you know why he said that? He said it because when one puts his or her faith in God then he or she believes that whatever happens is God's will. Even if things fail the rationale is that God will come back and fix things. If things work then they say it's God's grace. In essence, it is like believing that the dead live on. One does not know if this is true and has no way of proving it but one believes in it anyway for the sake of suspending the reality where they do not exist anymore.
A born Christian is not who I wish to argue against. I argue against a realist idealist which I hope you are. Most fail to change things as they know not that they can.
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A born Christian is not who I wish to argue against. I argue against a realist idealist which I hope you are. Most fail to change things as they know not that they can.
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: 1:02 PM
: 1:02 PM